I too had some doubts, esp vis-a-vis a Brit getting and carrying a 1911....
BUT
from
https://archive.org/stream/TheColt1911Pistol/The_Colt_1911_Pistol_djvu.txtIt is likely that the most famous British user of the 1911 in World War I
was T. E. Lawrence. In September 1914 Lawrence received two Colt 1911
pistols, reportedly a gift from Gertrude Bell. He was quite fond of the
weapons and carried them throughout his service with the Arabs. Lawrence's
brother Frank also carried a 1911 until he was killed in France during 1915.
and
http://www.sightm1911.com/lib/history/telawrence.htmEven as a university undergraduate traveling in the Middle east in 1909, he carried a modern weapon of good quality, a Mauser model 1896 semi-automatic pistol with a capacity of ten high-velocity cartridges. He mentioned this pistol in a letter to his mother written in October 1909, informing her that he “sold my Mauser pistol (at a profit) in Beyrout on my departure (5 pounds)”. When he went to war in 1914 officers could use the pistol of their choice and Lawrence, like Churchill, chose the Colt Model 1911 which is still considered one of the finest combat pistols of all time.
...
. On september 18, 1914, he received two Colt automatic pistols from America, sent at his request by a friend travelling there. (There was a shortage of pistols in England for several weeks after the war broke out.) Lawrence did not mention the model, but a letter from his brother Frank, who became an officer at the outbreak of the war and was killed in France in 1915, contains information that leads one to the conclusion that it could only have been a Colt Model 1911 in .45 caliber. Frank Lawrence wrote to T. E. Lawrence in September 1914:
The Colt is a lovely pistol. The more I examine it the more I like it. There is a vast gulf between it and the ordinary revolver.
If you want anything in connection with it which you don’t want to write for I could get it for you. They keep two weights of bullets, I think 200 and 230 grains. The lighter weight has considerably higher velocity and penetrating power, though I suppose less shock.
This would indicate that both Frank and T. E. had Colt automatics that used the 200 or 230 grain bullets. In 1914 this would have been the .45 caliber Model 1911. (The British also used the Colt 1911 in .455 caliber, but this chambering was not introduced until 1915.)
And Thus, Sir Chas assertion "T.E. Lawrence used a Colt 1911" is upheld!
then going to the archeology websites, we find ( to summarize)
at the train ambush site,
which is rahter remote and had few other battles
archeologists found a lot of european and turk bullets
but only a single large caliber pistol round.
While surveying the site of that attack, the team found a spent bullet that was fired from a Colt 1911 automatic pistol, a weapon that would have been extremely rare in the Middle East at the time—and that Lawrence is known to have carried.
http://phys.org/news/2016-04-bullet-lawrence-arabia-liar.html(includes excellent photo of spent bullet)
Professor Nicholas Saunders said: "The bullet we found came from a Colt automatic pistol, the type of gun known to be carried by Lawrence and almost certainly not used by any of the ambush's other participants."
and yes, they did consult actual firearms experts:
http://www.livescience.com/54321-lawrence-of-arabia-bullet-found.html A distinctive weapon
That type of gun was unlikely to have been used by anyone else at the ambush, said archaeologist Nicholas Saunders, one of the leaders of the team that investigated the site. Saunders co-directs the Great Arab Revolt Project (GARP), whose members have excavated a number of Arabian Desert locations where key battles were fought during the Arab Revolt between 1916 and 1918.
A Jordanian army escort accompanied Saunders and his team during their work on the ambush site, which lies in a demilitarized zone between Saudi Arabia and Jordan. A metal detector led the researchers to the bullet, Saunders told Live Science in an email.
Though the bullet was clearly different from the hundreds of other expended cartridges at the site, the archaeologists didn't recognize the find's significance right away, Saunders said. Handgun experts on the team conferred with an international network of specialists to identify the bullet as originating from a Colt 1911 automatic pistol, rather than from a rifle or other pistol of British, German or Turkish make that accounted for most of the spent ammunition the researchers found.
"It was the only Colt 1911 bullet found at Hallat Ammar," Saunders said, adding that Lawrence was the only person known to carry one of these guns during the ambush.
and here's a bigger photo
http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/archaeology/1.713171So, as fara as definitve proof that would hold up in a court of law ... no
But the series of circumstancial evidence leads us to suggest a very high probablity .
But now my image of Peter O'Toole standing on a wrecked steam locomotive holding a Mauser Broomhandle is dashed!
yhs
prof ( surprised!) marvel